The Unintended Consequences of Internet Marketing
It’s almost impossible to have a conversation with professional artists these days without some mention of SEO and Social Networking. Everyone seems to be engulfed in an all-consuming struggle to rise to the top of the search engine heap and to drown out the competition in sheer number of posts. An astounding amount of energy is spent on keywording, Twittering, FaceBooking, AdWording, Friending, Blogging, and probably a few more buzzwords I am yet to stub my toe on.
There jury is still out on whether these activities actually pay off in ways beyond mere socializing but some consequences are already becoming clear, and they are not always favorable.
For the heck of it, I typed “landscape photography” into Google and began paging through the results. Some names I recognized, others I never heard of, the actual photography ran the gamut from excellent to downright appalling in no particular order. Ansel Adams showed up on page 81.
Let me say it again, in case you missed the point: in searching for landscape photography, Ansel Adams is listed on page EIGHTY ONE.
Those of us who grew up gathering knowledge from multiple information channels; whether books, museums, galleries, formal education, news media, magazines, presentations, etc. will surely recognize Adams as a premier figure in landscape photography. But, consider the fact that the Internet and search engines are rapidly eclipsing or even eliminating many of these same channels. In a few years, Google or the likes may well be the primary or even sole source of information for most people. When that day comes, Ansel Adams — on page 81 — may as well never have existed.
All things being equal, a good marketer will be more prominent than a poor one, but things are no longer even remotely equal. When popularity is all about search engine rankings, the quality of one’s work is no longer a barrier for entry nor a measure of success. Instead of great thinkers, great artists, great authors, or great teachers; there will only be great keyword hackers, who may or may not also possess other talents.
Success in the age of SEO is no longer about distinguishing yourself by talent or skill but rather by being able to exploit the system. It’s what allows mediocrity to push in line ahead of excellence.
Want to get people’s attention? Forget about creating good work, offering an insightful thought (of your own!) or a piece helpful advice. Just try to fit the word “Avatar” (or whatever the hot term du jour happens to be) into a Tweet.
You could plausibly make the claim that good marketing always gave one an edge, perhaps even an unfair one, but when Internet marketing offers such a huge advantage for those who can manipulate algorithms vs. those who can produce actual meaningful value, the skilled and the creative are now playing against the equivalents of card counters, bat corkers, and steroid users and with the same consequences: the game itself is rapidly losing its appeal for both the players and the audience.
Let’s also not ignore the dramatic dilution of content quality. Try to estimate the percentage of Tweets, blog posts, Flickr images, etc. that are completely devoid of meaning and usefulness. Am I the only one whose guess is in the high 90s? Do you really want to see a random stranger’s vacation photos that in the past were confined to the family album? Do you really care to know that the other day I dropped a large framed print on my foot and boy did it hurt? Well, I did, and I had the good sense not to Tweet about it to the hundreds of people who put their trust in me to provide them with useful information.
How much effort needs to be expended these days to pick something useful, inspiring, meaningful, or even just plain interesting from the barrage of data that flows through Social Media channels? Or, viewed from a different perspective: how much useful, inspiring, meaningful, and interesting content gets drowned out by the flux of idle banter and may never get the recognition it deserves? How many DaVincis, Mozarts, and Picassos may be out there who may never get a chance to stand out from the crowd?
I don’t know the answer but I will say for myself that I am still struggling with the enormous commitment of keeping up with online marketing and have yet to see a return on the investment. Even if the return is there, I have to ask myself if this is something I really want to do or really need in order to be successful. The answer will undoubtedly be a game changer for me, and likely for others. Don’t let anyone tell you that Internet marketing is free. If you place even a small amount of value on your time, the sheer magnitude of the commitment makes it a very costly proposition.
Also, for myself, I consider very carefully what’s worthy of sharing with the world before broadcasting a missive to hundreds or thousands of followers, subscribers, and friends. I also make very judicious use of the “Unfollow” button when others are not as considerate of my attention span. And, I take the time to page through search results, never assuming the highest quality content is necessarily always at the top of the pile. In fact, I often find that to be the exception.
My hope is that one of these days an ingenious computer scientist will find a way of quantifying a metric for “meaningful” so that true greatness will rise to the top, rather than optimized mediocrity. Then again, letting a computer (or its programmer) determine what amounts to “meaningful” for the rest of us is another slippery slope altogether.
Category: Rants and Raves, Social Media
Oh boy, Guy – can of worms, I suspect. I can see this piece getting lots of attention. Well written as usual.
Those who can’t, S.E.O.?
You hit the nail on the head, Guy.
Well put yet again. I would rather ski one day with 30 inches of untracked snow than I would 30 days with 0 inches.
I see real upsides to Facebook, Photo Forums, and Flickr; Twitter is kinda a love hate. I feel there is some potential, but maybe I am not using it right. It seems the “nature photographer” circle just retweets itself. I have never seen an influx of followers after a follow friday recommendation and it appears most of us have a lot of the same followers. I had some interest in the begining in workshops, but actual gains form Twitter, a little more traffic to the blog.
I do get more info form Twitter, but most of that is environmental and local things.
Just not sure, but I know internet marketing is definitely needed.
Amen
In some ways not so different than making gallery presentations and selling yourself in the 70s. Just now you don’t have that extra layer of filtering and judgment. I am pleased to see someone else is noticing the same thing and wondering where it will lead.
Excellent! Do you mind if I retweet this?
I think it depends on just what you’re expecting / looking for from internet marketing (although I think that these days, we can drop the internet and just accept that any marketing strategy includes it). Since I’m the example I know best, I’ll start there – I found you, Guy, and most of the other photographers whose work I follow, from internet searches, links from websites, and now Facebook and Twitter. While I haven’t made any single photographer a fortune yet, I have spent a fair amount of money on prints, gear, consulting, books, calendars, and classes spread across the group.
As for my own fledgling photography business, well, I won’t be quitting my day job any time soon. I have had a number of people contact me about my work via the same channels mentioned above; I’m not seeing an increase in sales as yet, but I’m also still at the point of being happy to get people looking at my work.
It’s true that much of this marketing, especially the social networking type, takes a lot of time and often leads right back into the circle of other nature photographers – but living as I do in a small, struggling, blue-collar city, I’m grateful for the opportunity to interact with and get to know other nature photogs from around the world, and in fact that’s how I’ve met most of the photogs I know in my own region. This doesn’t show up in my P&L, but it’s pretty important to me nonetheless.
Your point about great artists potentially being lost in the flood of mediocre and bad work is valid, but we also have to keep in mind that in other eras these people wouldn’t necessarily have been heard from at all. How much art has been lost because the artist never managed to get gallery representation or get a book published? So, while the bad news is that today anybody with a computer can put work out there into the global mix, the good news is that today anybody with a computer can put work out there into the global mix!
To paraphrase Sturgeon’s Revelation, it might be true that 90% of online marketing and search is crud, but it’s also true that 90% of everything is crud.
Thanks for the thought-provoking article, Guy – I’m sure it will be getting you Google hits for years to come! :^D
- Jack
It can be said that the “enormous” success of Ansel Adams was also a function of strong marketing. Adams was quite adept at promoting his work, more so that many other great photographers of his time (e.g. Edward Western).
I have to agree with Jack above – sure there is a tremendous amount of poor quality stuff which gets exposure because of great internet marketing and SEO optimization. This is what happens when the tools to market directly to others are distributed to the mass population – a sign of our freedom. As Clay Shirky says “there’s no such thing as information overload, there’s only filter failure.” In other words, the content is not going away, so complaining about it is irrelevant. We need to make better use of technology to filter the meaningful that matter to each of us. The tools already exist like aggregation, twitter search, etc.
I think your points are well stated Guy, but somehow I don’t quite get what you think the solutions might be. As for me, engaging my readers and followers as often as possible to create trust has definitely lead to a positive ROI on my social media, though perhaps not as much as I would like. But this is long term stuff, no different than pounding the pavement with prints trying to get into local galleries. How many shows have I done without a single sale. But the cumulative efforts have definitely paid off for me both on-line and off.
Thanks again for making us think…
Thanks everyone! Obviously I wanted to rock the boat a bit and I knew this would get some interesting responses.
To be honest, I don’t have an answer. My concern is not with Internet marketing per se, or with it being available to the masses (as it should be). What alarms me in particular are 2 points related to it:
1. Internet marketing is becoming (maybe already is) the ONLY way to promote and educate about art.
2. Internet marketing is heavily weighted in favor of those who can best game the system – there is no concept of importance or greater context that applies to ranking (wouldn’t you think Ansel Adams would feature prominently on Page-1 if there was?)
Think of Google burying the small artisan or the reclusive poet in the way that megastores overrun small community businesses. In the past, artists could get noticed in community publications, in exhibits where work is chosen by quality (when people had to actually go out to see art) etc.
Robert, you raised something I’ve been thinking about last night after I wrote the entry – we NEED better filters. The simplistic follow/unfollow or friend/hide etc. just doesn’t cut it. The same for search engine – there needs to be a better way of telling the system “I want THIS kind of content” or, just as important “I don’t want THAT kind of content”.
Services like Amazon, Netflix, Pandora and others allow users to provide personalized rankings for every item that comes up in search and tailor future results accordingly. I wish I could do the same with other sites. Maybe that’s part of the solution.
Keep the notes coming!
Hopefully those types of filters are coming – we certainly have all we need to create content, not we need to manage it. I for one spend more time filtering content than browsing – not exactly enjoyable, but hopefully we can automate this more in the future.
As for Ansel’s ranking, at least he is on page 3 if you search for “black and white landscape photography”, and page 1 for “black and white landscape photography of yosemite” – perhaps a clue as to how specificity matters greatly in Google searches – and a way to make better filters.
oops – meant “now” in the second line…not “not”.
Good post. No you are not the only one to notice these things. I am often very frustrated with search results. You know the information is out there but it’s buried under an avalanche of garbage.
For me, because I live in the country near a small town lacking in female photographers and artists to socialize with, the Internet (and social media) is my social vehicle more so than my marketing outlet. I’ve never had great results with online selling, so I don’t devote much time to it. I probably resemble one of those people Tweeting about useless personal stuff instead of strictly business.
I disagree that the Internet is the ONLY way to promote & educate about art. The real world is still the best way, and it’s where I have found my success, not online. Although the online stuff has never paid off, I’ve made some terrific personal contacts online.
While it never that simple. I do find there are 2 streams of activities, while related different, that is going on.
First is the computer algorithm (not human in thought yet) that tries to serve up your search request. This is still in its infancy stage and maybe one day searches will be more tuned to your needs.
The second and more important, which will lead to more sales (etc) is the social networking effort.
Searches are good at really finding what you need. With social connections and now people you trust, their recommendations mean more of who is a good ‘Landscaper’
And the second part also as one who participates, you are branding your products and services and this if done correctly and it takes time will, lead to more people who like your brand, which really means your trust and worthiness factor.
Niels Henriksen
Social Media
In todays business it’s a necessary evil.
But that’s not to say good things can’t disseminate from the high volume of noise.
Social Media can be a tool, a weapon, etc.
SM has leveled the playing field, in some ways, between the “haves” (big business) and “have nots” (average Joes). Anyone can make their message or “agenda” visible to every corner of the world. That’s pretty powerful.
The question is, how do you choose to engage it?
Lastly, I agree about the time thing. As an individual, to be a robust social media’er (is that a word?) requires a huge amount of time. That sucks. Everyday we have a little less… God help me I choose wisely…
Oh, and a side note, Ansel may want to blog a little more to get is rankings in check. Maybe a viral video or two as well … Having an affair will also get some much needed press …
Although I’m not a commercial photographer, I’d be interested to know if the folks who have figured out how to get to the top of search results are getting any ROI. If they are, then there is no unintended consequence for those photographers. If they aren’t, then they’re just like all the other people who are still trying to figure out how to make money on the internet.
You really make valid points Guy. The struggle of keeping up on what we are being told is a “must do” in order to compete is just plumb nuts.
I can say this about my endeavor into social media. It has given me a place to begin to express outwardly my growth as a photographer. It is more and more becoming a tool for honest expression and not one for increased exposure. That is the way I want to keep it, so that is up to me.
Appreciate you bringing light to this rat race of social media that so many use as a tool to climb the latter instead of honest growth and expression.
Some great responses from Jack and Robert.
This comment in your post stood out. “All things being equal, a good marketer will be more prominent than a poor one, but things are no longer even remotely equal.”
Things have never been remotely equal, and good marketing has always trumped good photography. Now it might be SEO and social media, 15 years ago it was direct mailings and phone calls. We have know idea how many great photographers were out there before the internet. Photographers whose images were never viewed by anyone outside of possible close family.
Today, anyone, in any part of the world who is willing to embrace the opportunities has a chance. As Matt pointed out, the playing field has never been more level. Look at the opportunities it has afforded the likes of David duChemin and Trey Radcliff.
To me it is empowering. I don’t have to rely on a big stock agency, book publisher or art gallery – look where that is getting Ansel Adams. I will have no one but myself to blame for my success or failure and I prefer it that way.
Ron
When my son (then 22) first introduced me to the concept and techniques of SEO, some four years ago, I realized right away that it is a separate job.
Of course SEO has nothing to do with art. It is all about Marketing in the age of the Internet. And, like it or not it is the reality we live in.
Marketing of course is one of the major departments where every company must allocate resources. To survive, we as freelance Photographers must learn to see ourselves as a “company,” too. If our company can only afford one employee (you) then you must split your time doing different things — Art and Marketing being two of them, but bookkeeping/accounting come to mind, too, and of course our art involves two major activities: field and Post-processing work. So…
I understand your frustration, and of course I feel it, too, but let’s not assume those Photography companies that have invested time and resources into SEO, by default produce inferior or mediocre photography.
As it happens, I did give my son the SEO job (not for free, either) and, at his direction we avoided optimizing for terms such as “Landscape Photography” or “Nature Photography” (too broad) but… well… Google “Pacific Northwest Photography” and see what he has accomplished (and kept us there all these years.)
And… please don’t assume the first page hits are necessarily all trash
Cheers,
At least Ansel is number 2 for “famous landscape photographers”.
I have to agree and disagree with you. You seem to have a thought that there exists certain criteria that defines a “good” art. I agree with you on that. Even though art appears to be very subjective and free of any constraints there are most likely a few “scientific” rules that define a “good” art. In other words there are underlying principles governing how a human mind finds something beautiful.
Now you seem to suggest that search algorithm filters are not optimized. I have to agree with you on that too. There is certainly a room for development in terms of how computers define “good” art. Rules such as having a balanced histogram in an image is a mathematical equivalent of human perception of “good” image. And I am very certain that there are other rules that need to be programmed into search criteria so as to at least screen out the outright appalling images. Since art is very subjective none of these rules can completely cover human interpretation of “good” but can hopefully be a step forward from where we are today.
Now on the disagreement part. I feel art cannot be judged on the commercial platform alone. I am with you when you question monetary advantages of social media but there are few channels available today where one can discuss an image and provide feedback on it. For me social media has been of great help to meet talented people and learn from them. As a matter of fact I found you through one of my flickr contacts. There may not be very many buyers of art on social media but there are certainly consumers of art.
Another disagreement I have is the point you make about Ansel Adams. As far as I know he was a very popular photographer in his day and was better at marketing than Ed Weston, as point out in one of the comments above. Now the good part is that even though Ed Weston did not make much money from his prints while he was alive, his images are a huge success today despite his lack of marketing. Good art survives in the long run. Ansel Adams being on page 81 is just the immaturity of search engines today and I would not bet on it being that way in the long run.
Thanks for posting this. It made me think and put together my thoughts.
Cheers,
Saurabh
You might be interested in reading my #1 blog post. How Are We Ever Going To Keep Making Money At Photography? I wrote it almost 6 months ago, but it addresses the same issues that you are pondering. I have definitely read the quote that a photographer this is a great marketer will trump a great photographer that does not know how to market any day.
If you actually pay attention to a more meaningful search like, Denali National Park Photography, then you will see that it is dominated by worthy photographers. There is a reason that Ron, Phil, QT, Rolf, & myself come up high in a lot of search results. I agree that the landscape photography search makes no sense, but if you do a more rational search, those of us that know what we are doing artistically & technologically come up high.
An interesting article! Although it’s unfortunate that many people try to beat the system, I know that Google (and probably other search engines) works against this kind of thing. They try to give you results relevant to your search. Might I suggest that if someone is searching “landscape photography,” they probably aren’t looking for Ansel Adams? They’re most likely looking for photographs or tips and techniques. That’s why he’s not prominent.
[...] Guy Tal’s unapologetic view of Internet marketing can be found at “The Unintended Consequences of Internet Marketing”. [...]
While I agree with what you’re conveying in your article, I do have disagree with your search methodology. Repeating your scenario, Ansel is mentioned on page 9, and the Ansel Adams Gallery is shown on page 12. Also, your search criterea is overly broad. If you want to look for Ansel you would look for Landscape Photographers, which immediately brings up an entire category for Ansel Adams. People also need to remember that Google is not the only search engine out there. For example, Cuil immediately shows Ansel in the side bar–granted he’s the last in the list of photographers, but he’s right there on the first page. Still, this was an excellent and provacative article. Thanks for taking the time to research and share it.
I always love reading your articles, so thanks for another one. I appreciate everyone’s thoughts specifically on social media because it has been a significant marketing tool for me. It has allowed people I didn’t previously have connections with be able to regularly view my work. For those who don’t appreciate this form of marketing we undoubtedly must progress to involve the masses.
Thanks again Guy!
I would argue that Ansel Adams is really quite a narrow part of landscape photography, so it is not too surprising he doesn’t immediately rise to the top. I say this as someone who migrated from England to California, partly because of him. If you use “western american black and white landscape” he appears as one of the masters. The world is a much bigger place too.
You will be glad to know that the inventor of the web Tim Berners-Lee is actually quite disappointed with how it has developed too. He was hoping for it to be more like his idea of a . In this the network understands your queries rather than it all just being simple keyword matching.
Don’t forget the reason Google rose to the fore was its success in finding relevant info better than anyone before. Much of this is based on their Page Ranking algorithm which attempts to measure how others rate a particular page. So maybe it is the collective net that doesn’t rate Ansel as highly as some of us.
Interesting. We are all trying to figure this stuff out.